A Bouquet of Glass

Guernica Editions (Essential Poets)

978-1-77183-938-9

102 pages | March 1, 2025

These vital and visceral prose poems map the surreal landscape of a mind altered, altared, each word at once a bloom and a shard. "Something resembling joy" rushes through a crack in the world, and Krause takes us to the other side.

—JODY CHAN, author of impact statement and sick, winner of the Trillium Award for Poetry

In A Bouquet of Glass, Carol Krause uses language and forms that are intricate, fertile, fresh, and wonderfully strange, to invite us into the beautiful and hopeful paradox that these poems themselves could salve the agony they describe. A work of art that affirms life, in its courage to fearlessly elucidate what denies it.

—THEA LIM, author of An Ocean of Minutes

Carol Krause is a gifted wordsmith, and when a cardinal lands on her ear, the poems in A Bouquet of Glass take flight, splintering into multiple, kaleidoscopic realities. This is a work of searching beauty that asks readers to surrender to the prismatic nature of poetry. 

—JIM JOHNSTONE, author of The King of Terrors

Through visceral sensory imagery, Carol Krause manifests: rest as resistance, nature as solace and camaraderie, excruciation of mundanity, kaleidoscope of other worlds, lives not lived, intimacy of platonic and altered states. A Bouquet of Glass leaves you with lines to return to and linger on. The poems etch themselves into you, finding belonging. 

MUGABI BYENKYA, award-winning author of Dear Philomena, Songs For Wo(Men) and Songs For Wo(Men) 2

Exploring topics such as mental illness, psychoactive mindstates, and others, A Bouquet of Glass is a daring celebration of neurodivergence through penetrating poetic verse. . . . If poetry has the power to pull us up out of the mundane and remind us of the sacred that lies all around, that power can undoubtedly be found in this book. . . . A Bouquet of Glass is a multifaceted gem. It is a poetry book that cannot be said to have a singular effect on the reader. Like light passing through a prism, the poems in this book will undoubtedly reach and touch readers in unique and powerful ways as they peer through the lens of Krause’s extraordinary mind.

Brandon Thompson, Journal of Transpersonal Psychology

A Bouquet of Glass turned my body upside down. . . . How does one embrace the dark enough to study it? In stunning prose poems, Carol’s collection responds to this question for us all. . . . I’ve never read anything like A Bouquet of Glass before. And what a doorway to the dark that is—the only place we can create a life we haven’t seen.

Mikaela Brewer, Lamplight Magazine

Something about the wonder in these prose poems. They resonate. Awe and a sense of recognition still my brain and my body. I feel reverence for this poet’s ability to articulate the dark and light of an uncontained mind. . . . This book will break you open and reveal something hidden and glistening . . . I will take the comfort, an orange and the harmonica and enjoy the melody of her poems, her voice that keeps singing despite the fear.

Amanda Earl, The /tƐmz/ Review

It’s unusual to read something that weaves so closely the warp and weft of internal experience and external reality. . . . The poems themselves are tender and self-compassionate and carry the sort of loving detail that makes me believe that everything can be salient. . . . There are so many extraordinary lines in this collection—and so many images—that touched me. So many stories tangling and untangling along the way. So many “clear, clean lines,” as Ursula LeGuin puts it.

Steve Thorp, Asylum Magazine

An impressive collection of prose poetry from a first-time author. No amateur to her favoured style. The writing moves with that rare linguistic flexibility, both meaningful and rhythmic without getting lost in the music. It compels your eyes to read like they’re on a psychedelic superslide.

Colin Quin, Arc Poetry Magazine